Green Howe bowl barrow, 280m south of Bank House

Reasons for Designation

Bowl barrows, the most numerous form of round barrow, are funerary monuments dating from the Late Neolithic period to the Late Bronze Age, with most examples belonging to the period 2400-1500 BC. They were constructed as earthen or rubble mounds, sometimes ditched, which covered single or multiple burials. They occur either in isolation or grouped as cemeteries and often acted as a focus for burials in later periods. Often superficially similar, although differing widely in size, they exhibit regional variations in form and a diversity of burial practices. There are over 10,000 surviving bowl barrows recorded nationally (many more have already been destroyed), occurring across most of lowland Britain. Often occupying prominent locations, they are a major historic element in the modern landscape and their considerable variation of form and longevity as a monument type provide important information on the diversity of beliefs and social organisations amongst early prehistoric communities. They are particularly representative of their period and a substantial proportion of surviving examples are considered worthy of protection.

Despite part excavation between 1938 and 1942, the barrow will retain further burials and other archaeological deposits relating to the period of its construction. Further information on the earlier settlement will also survive.

Details

The monument includes a Bronze Age bowl barrow situated 280m south of Bank House and Westgate Farm. The barrow mound survives to a height of about 2.5m and has an overall diameter of nearly 20m. The barrow was partly excavated between 1938 and 1942 by B W J Kent and H J Strickland, who found evidence of the original ground level beneath the barrow mound, which contained many burnt cobbles, flints, a polished greenstone axe and sherds of Ebbsfleet, Mortlake, Ringo-Clacton and Beaker ware pottery. The remains of six interments were found within the barrow, and included a male inhumation in the central interment, lying at the south west of the grave with a boulder at the other end, together with the interment of a female at the lower end of the grave, found with a bone pin, a flint knife and flint flakes. In addition to these were found a child burial, the remains of a foetus covered by a small cairn near the east side of the grave, which had been covered with a turf mound. A further child burial was found and secondary cremations were recovered within the barrow mound, one of them with an overhanging rim urn. There was no evidence of a ditch. The monument appeared to have been built over part of a Neolithic settlement, material from which was found included in the dry stone revetment of the barrow.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

26622

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society in Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, Vol. 5, (1939), 251
Yorkshire Archaeological Journal in Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 43, (1971), 2-32

Other
From N Yorks SMR, Y A S Inventory Record Card,

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.